Only she and the Unitarian minister speak at the service; it’s not her family’s custom to eulogize in public. And there have been no revelations about her father. Jill would have spoken about her grandfather, Joanna thinks. It is Elliott, however, who surprises Joanna. Elliott — husband, man of science — looking somewhat awkward but determined, reads a poem he wrote the night before about his beloved father-in-law. Frank Sinatra sings: “I’ll be seeing you …”
Where have you gone, Papà? Joanna says to herself as she and Elliott drive her mother to the restaurant where the mourners will down a five-course meal. Suddenly the trunk of the car pops open.
“That’s odd.” Elliott pulls over to the curb to shut it.
Why don’t you ever clean all this crap out of your trunk, Elliott? Joanna hears her father say. She caresses the watch on her wrist; the touch on her skin is her father’s.
At the restaurant they sit at one long table. From his high chair, Angie’s toddler, Michael, stares at the ceiling in a corner of the room. Laughing, he points.
“What is it, Mikey?” Angie asks.
“Uncle Marco!” he screams with delight.
“Uncle Marco isn’t here, sweetheart.” Angie glances over at her aunt, hoping the outburst hasn’t upset her.
But Myra sits content and unruffled. “They always come to the little ones,” she says, smiling. And Joanna wonders if this could have been the promise: to give her mother a sign, to tell her whether there is life after death. She likes to think this is so. She can believe this is so, because her father, who adamantly refused to entertain matters related to the hereafter, would have done this and much more for her mother. That, Joanna, she hears him clear as a bell, is the miracle — the miracle of unconditional love.
He’s here with them. But for how long? Does he want to tell them he’s happy? No. She doesn’t believe for a minute that he’s happy to be away from his family. And for a moment she too sees him — young and healthy, floating high in the corner, smiling with resignation; his only suffering now is to be separated from them in a world that skeptical Marco has had to see for himself.
Then he’s gone.
Joanna will look for him, convinced that she’ll find him one day, on a train or a plane, standing beside her in a hospital parking lot, in a café in the mountains of Italy, in a child running down the green hills. She’ll see him; she’ll hear his voice — male or female — and she’ll know that it’s her father.
Throughout the writing of this book my parents were healthy and of sound mind. However, this is very much a book about the supernatural, as well as love, and loss, and I feel compelled to say that, while I was writing about a beloved home going up in flames, a neighbor’s house burned down. By the time this printed edition of the collection emerged, my father had developed cancer, albeit a different form than Marco’s, and died, and my mother was indeed suffering from dementia.
I am deeply thankful to my steadfast agent, Laura Gross, who first published a slightly altered version of this collection as an eBook, and to her patient former assistant Amaryah Orenstein. To Michael Mirolla and everyone at Guernica Editions who cared enough to bring it to life on the printed page. To Joann Kobin, Betsy Hartmann, Mordicai Gerstein, Roger King, Anthony Giardina, and Carina Wohl for listening and reading. Barbara Silvestri, Darcy Guimond, Emily Friedan, Barry Feingold, and Marci Yoss, gracious contributors of time and facts. My editor and miracle worker, Chris Jerome. My parents, Viola and Michael Labozzetta, who taught me everything I’ve ever really needed to know in life; Papa, you are forever with me in so many facets of this world, as well as in my heart and mind. My grandfather, Antonino Labozzetta, for his wisdom, and my uncle, Gino Medori, for stumbling upon a singular villa. To my numerous cousins, without whom my childhood would have been very lonely. My children, Ariana, Carina, Michael, and Mark, who keep me in the 21st century. My grandchildren, Ethan and Luke, who give me joy and hope. And, as always, my wonderful husband Martin, who makes all things possible.
Several of these stories have previously appeared in a somewhat different form in literary magazines and journals: “The Swap” and “Pretty Face” in Perigee; “Comfort Me, Stranger” in American Fiction; and “Forecast for a Sunny Day” in Italian Americana.
Marisa Labozzetta is the author of the award-winning novel Sometimes it Snows in America, and Stay With Me, Lella. Her collection of stories, At the Copa, was a finalist for the 1999 Binghamton University John Gardner Fiction Award and received a Pushcart nomination. Thieves Never Steal in the Rain was an Eric Hoffer eBook award winner. Her work has appeared in The American Voice, Beliefnet.com, The Florida Review, The Penguin Book of Italian American Writing, Show Me a Hero: Great Contemporary Stories About Sports, When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple, among other publications. She lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.
A reading group guide to Thieves Never Steal in the Rain is available at www.marisalabozzetta.com.
Copyright
© 2016, Marisa Labozzetta and Guernica Editions Inc.
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise stored in a retrieval system, without the prior consent of the publisher is an infringement of the copyright law.
Michael Mirolla, editor
Cover and interior design, David Moratto
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Legal Deposit — First Quarter
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2015949358
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Labozzetta, Marisa, author
Thieves never steal in the rain [electronic resource] / Marisa Labozzetta.
— First edition.
(Essential prose series ; 120)
Short stories.
ISBN 978-1-77183-050-8 (paperback)
I. Title. II. Series: Essential prose series ; 120
PS3562.A2356T45 2016 813’.54 C2015-905884-8
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